No Foundation Challenge Update #2: ending my challenge early...

Totally make-up free. (I really need to re-henna my hair! Sorry about my terrible roots.)

This second update is really late! There's two reasons really, first off I've been quite busy getting myself ready for my last ever term as an undergraduate (typing that is oh so scary). Third year is really pretty hectic, every other student out there who is in a similar position- I send you all the good feelings, we may not sleep as much as we'd like but we can totally manage this!  My second reason/excuse is that my skin has seriously been acting up lately and I had a relatively bad break out on my chin that I just couldn't bring myself to share with the world. I've been good and have remained 'foundation free' but I did use a dab of concealer on one of the nastier spots the other day. I felt bad about it but at the same time I was just like 'these challenges are meant to be positive things', and having a big ol' red thing on my chin exposed to the world was not making me feel positive. But that was still a cheat. So once I knew that I'd cheated I felt pretty bad to be honest because it sort of meant I'd failed.

I have to say that on the whole my skin has been really good this month. My cheeks were less rosy, my pores smaller and my break outs fewer. However, I don't think this is solely make-up related. After my crazy little break out I finally accepted, once and for all, that my skin's health is almost totally dependent on two factors: my skin care regime and my diet. If I eat refined sugar (most notably in the form of sweets/chocolate) I will get a break out. It may not be an army of spots but one little monster will almost undoubtedly rear its head. Similarly, if I don't cleanse, tone and moisturise religiously my skin will evidence this. This month I've eaten pretty cleanly (minus the bag of chocolate I scoffed at the cinema last week which led me into break out hell) and I think that this made the biggest difference to my skin, especially early on in the month.

Overall, as far as I'm concerned this month has been a great experience for my skin. I've found some skincare products which work really nicely and I'm able to give them very thorough reviews as a result as I know that make-up hasn't interfered with what they were intending to do.Although, I'm gonna admit right now that going au naturel skin-wise for 4 weeks now has not been easy. I love wearing make-up. I love the process of application, I love feeling 'made up'. When you don't wear a base it really affects what other products you can wear and how they last on your skin. I miss blush! I miss highlighters! I found they just didn't work on bare skin in a way that I liked.

I know it might disappoint some of you but I'm gonna call it quits tomorrow and start my week wearing foundation. I know, I know, I only have four days left. But you know what, I really want to wear more make-up. I now know that make-up isn't the thing making my skin not its best so I don't feel like I need to stay clear of it. I'm certainly going to look into wearing more light weight coverage from now on as the foundation I used to wear I just couldn't conceive wearing on a daily basis anymore, it feels far too heavy. But BB creams, tinted moisturisers, light foundation- these products are definitely my friends! I just have to make sure I choose them as carefully as I would my skin care because like skin care they'll come into contact with my skin very often. I don't mean to disappoint anyone by stopping this challenge early, I just feel like this is a nice place for it to end as I feel pretty happy about the experience right now.

How are your New Year's Resolutions / Challenges getting along? 

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